Coachella to Broadway?

Some fantasy candidates for acts that could make the next big musical

Blur

Green Day did it with "American Idiot." So did the Flaming Lips, with "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots." So given all the hot acts that'll close the Coachella fest this weekend, there've got to be at least a few who could likewise make the leap from alt-rock to musical theater. Our own entirely speculative list starts with Blur, whose leader, Damon Albarn, already has shown theatrical savvy by co-creating the fictional cartoon "band" Gorillaz. (Truth is, we just want to see someone try and choreograph the frenetic "Song 2.")

Sean M. HaffeyShare

2

Vampire Weekend

Because there simply aren't enough uptempo, Afro-beat-influenced musicals on such subjects as punctuation, we vote for the stage-ifying of this New York-sprung band's irresistible music. Songs like "Oxford Comma" could fit into some extra-nerdy Shakespeare adaptation. Des McAnuff, the former Playhouse artistic chief (and "Yoshimi" mastermind), already has taken a Dracula musical to Broadway, so he could direct.

Sean M. Haffey / UT San DiegoShare

3

Violent Femmes

The venerable Wisconsin rockers' catalog is full of evocative story-songs. We picture a kind of alt-American Gothic coming-of-age musical - Holden Caulfield belting "Blister in the Sun" or "Gimme the Car," maybe. Plus, with all that music created by just three guys, this would be an awfully cheap one to produce.

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4

Bat for Lashes

The singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist born Natasha Khan seems halfway to creating a dramatic epic already. Under her stage name, Bat for Lashes, she makes haunting music with a strong streak of the theatrical. Even her characters have characters: Bat for Lashes at one time adopted the persona of an alter ego named Pearl.

Derrik ChinnShare

5

Phoenix

Coachella's Saturday headliners might not seem inherently musical-theater-minded, but we have it on good authority from a Night&Day source that the performance by Phoenix last weekend included some serious drama, including the spectacle of singer Thomas Mars crowd-surfing and cocooning himself in microphone cord. Plus, the French band has a new album coming out Monday. (It's titled "Bankrupt!," but that's one word that has never seemed to scare musical-theater producers away.)